“It’s my secretary. Back of her head is smashed, but I felt a pulse.” He held up his bloody finger that had touched Lucy’s hair. “I don’t know how long ago. I’ve been out all evening. She was here alone.”
Dr. Price was a bald-headed, dried-up little man with gentle blue eyes and a white goatee. He was fully dressed, except for coat and tie. He took in Shayne’s condition of partial undress and his explanation of the emergency with an expression of complete disinterest as he examined the patient.
“Hot water,” Dr. Price said. “A large container. Be sure it boils.”
Shayne whirled and trotted to the kitchen. He ran water from the faucet into a half-gallon boiler, the largest vessel the small kitchenette afforded, set it on the gas flame, then went back to stand in the bedroom doorway again.
Dr. Price had the blood wiped away and the brown hair parted to reveal an ugly wound just at the base of Lucy’s skull when Shayne returned. He was probing carefully, and without lifting his head said, “Concussion. Not dangerous, but quite serious.”
“How long ago, Doc?”
“Half an hour, maybe. Watch that kettle and bring it in as soon as it boils. You can’t help by standing there gawking. And call my nurse in six-seventeen. I’ll need her in a few minutes.”
Shayne stopped at the telephone and called the nurse. She answered sleepily, but promised to come down at once. The kettle was boiling when he went back into the kitchen. He carried it into the bedroom and asked the doctor whether there was anything else he could do.
“A clean towel and washrag,” the doctor ordered.
Shayne sprinted into the bathroom and took a wash-rag, three linen face towels, and a large bath towel from the cabinet and raced to the bedroom with them, then went into the living-room with his shoes and shirt in his hand and put them on.
Pacing the room and tugging at his earlobe, he worried his mind for some clue as to what could have happened to Lucy. She was wearing a nightgown and a robe. Why were her bedroom slippers lying on the living-room floor instead of beside the bed, which would be the normal place for them to be? She had promised to wait in his apartment until he returned. Evidently she had gone to her room, undressed and made herself comfortable in the gown and robe and slippers, then returned to his living-room to wait for him. When he was so late coming home, maybe she had become anxious and decided to rest on his bed instead of going back to her own room so that she would know the minute he returned and find out whether anything had happened to him.
Miss Naylor’s knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. She was tall and austere-appearing without any make-up and with night cream still smeared on her face. Her hair was done up in metal curlers, but she wore a clean starched uniform and seemed completely self-possessed, competent, and unaware of her personal appearance.
Shayne took her to the bedroom. She went in and firmly closed the door. For a moment he glared at the door, then resumed his pacing.
Half an hour ago, Dr. Price had said. He himself had been in the apartment almost that long before going into the bedroom. He didn’t let himself think that things might have been different if he had gone directly to the bedroom when he saw her slippers on the floor. It was a sign he was getting old. Ten years ago he wouldn’t have fooled around with cigarettes and a drink under such conditions.
The door to the apartment had been unlocked, he recalled. Perhaps she had thought of something she wanted to get from her own room while she waited for him, had gone out and left the door on the latch. She didn’t have a key to the door. But why would she have gone into the bedroom, gone to bed, without locking the door?
The agony of trying to think without anything to begin with, with absolutely nothing that could give him any intimation of what had happened, was exhausting. He sank into a chair by the table. He poured half a water-glass of cognac and began sipping it slowly. He looked around the apartment with narrowed and speculative eyes. He knew every inch of it, every article of furniture and the exact position occupied by each one. He couldn’t see anything out of place-nothing whatsoever to indicate where the attack on Lucy had occurred.
Anger rolled over him like a tidal wave as he began to realize the actual import of what had occurred. Someone had come here, brutally slugged an innocent girl, and then walked calmly out again. And he, by God, was sitting around like a fool, straining his ears for a sound, a significant word, from the closed bedroom, and not doing one damned thing about what had happened.
He got up and stalked to the telephone, got police headquarters, and asked for Sergeant Harvey, who was in charge of the homicide squad.
“Speaking,” Sergeant Harvey said.
“Mike Shayne. There’s been an attempted murder in my apartment. Murder-maybe.”
“Which was it? Make up your mind.”
“The doctor will have to tell us that.” Shayne’s voice was edged with anger. “You got anybody around there sober enough to come over and dust for fingerprints-or is that too much trouble?”
“Keep your pants on,” said the sergeant wearily. “We’ll be right over. Who is it?”
“My secretary,” said Shayne shortly. “Miss Lucy Hamilton. I wish you’d bring Robertson if he’s on duty.” He hung up and again let his eyes roam slowly over every inch of the room, then strode out to the kitchen and tried the door leading onto the fire escape. It was locked, and the key hung in its accustomed place.
Back in the living-room, he got the night clerk on the wire. The man asked anxiously, “What’s the trouble, Mr. Shayne? Someone hurt up there?”
“My secretary. I’m afraid she’s pretty badly hurt, Jim. Was there anyone asking to see me this evening?”
“Not a soul, Mr. Shayne. I haven’t seen Miss Hamilton go out or come in, either.”
“She didn’t,” Shayne told him. “We had dinner here, and she waited for me when I went out. Notice anything particular about anyone coming in or out of the hotel while I was gone?”
After a brief silence, the night clerk said, “Not a thing, Mr. Shayne. Mostly just the regulars. I’ll ask the elevator boy if you want.”
“I’ll talk to him myself. The cops are on their way over, Jim. Send them right up, will you?” He hung up and went to the closed bedroom door and bent his head to listen through the keyhole. He could hear the low murmuring of voices, but could distinguish no words.
He left the entrance door open when he went down the corridor to the elevator. When it stopped in response to his ring the door opened, the Negro boy asked excitedly,
“What’s up, Mist’ Shayne? You all right? When I brung Doctor Price down-”
“I’m all right. It’s Miss Hamilton. She was slugged in my apartment while I was out. Did you bring any strangers up here tonight? Anybody who asked for my room?”
“Nobody that ast for you. No-suh. Coupla strangers, maybe. Nobody I noticed a-tall.”
“Any friends of mine, then,” said Shayne sharply. “Anybody you may have seen around here with me before.”
“Nobody ’cept that newspaper man. The long thin un-”
“He came after I was back.”
“Thass right. He sho did.” The elevator buzzer sounded. “I’se got somebody waitin’ at the bottom,” the boy said.
Shayne nodded and went slowly back to his open door. The elevator returned to the third floor and stopped before he had entered. He turned to see Sergeant Harvey and two of his men get off and come toward him. They greeted Shayne with grave cordiality when he invited them in.
“Well-let’s have it,” said Sergeant Harvey.
Shayne explained briefly what had happened to Lucy Hamilton, ending with: “Doctor Price and his nurse are in there with her now. I hope she’ll be able to tell us what happened.”
“You say she was dressed for bed?” the sergeant asked delicately.